A single mother in Phoenix with stage 4 kidney cancer that has spread to her lung and the area behind her neck is set to lose her Social Security disability benefits and Medicare at the end of September, after the agency determined she can return to full-time work. Alexis, who has attended 684 medical appointments over four years while battling a cancer that is not in remission, filed an appeal the very next day after receiving the denial.
According to AZ Family, Alexis’s cancer began in her kidney before spreading to her lung and behind her neck. She has relied on Social Security Disability Insurance and Medicare since summer 2023, coverage that allowed her to focus on medical treatment while working one part-time job and raising her 13-year-old daughter. The Social Security Administration began reviewing her case in January, and in August it sent her a letter stating her health had improved and that she could work, according to the same report.
Alexis and her doctors completed the required paperwork for the review, but a separate medical provider also performed a general physical examination as part of the process. Alexis reported that the provider did not review her medical file before reaching a conclusion, per the station’s account. That brief evaluation appears to have factored into the agency’s finding that she could return to full-time employment, even though she says her cancer remains active and incurable.
A Legal Standard That Seems at Odds With the Case
Under Social Security Administration Blue Book Listing 13.21, kidney cancer automatically meets federal disability criteria when it is inoperable, unresectable, recurrent, or has metastasized beyond regional lymph nodes to distant organs such as the lungs, according to Cannon Disability Law. The Social Security Administration also designates inoperable, unresectable, or metastatic kidney cancer under its Compassionate Allowances initiative, a fast-track policy meant to speed disability determinations for people with severe, life-threatening conditions, per the agency’s own program guidance…